One of the trends that has turned marketing on its head is how “word of mouth” has increased in importance in recent years.

The growth of word of mouth marketing partly is a reaction to the overuse of advertising. We are bombarded with advertising messages to the point where we have gotten adept at tuning them out. We even invest in technology such as TiVo and ad-blocker software to help us filter out ads.

Studies show we are more likely to trust one of our peers or “someone like me” over a company spokesperson. For instance, the seventh annual Edelman Trust Barometer, a survey by PR firm Edelman, shows that 68% of people trust a peer, making peers the most credible source of information about a company. It is no accident that one of the most happenin’ things on the Web today is citizen’s media, with blogs and sites like MySpace, where regular people are speaking their minds and spreading some of that word of mouth.

Word of mouth is just as important among the small business community as among consumers. This year’s Warrillow Summit, THE event about selling to small businesses, is themed entirely around the subject of word of mouth.

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to speak with John Warrillow, CEO of the Warrillow & Co., which organizes the Summit. I asked him why word of mouth was so important that the entire Summit would be centered on this one topic. He noted, “As online media such as blogs, discussion forums and podcasts have become mainstream ways of communicating, it is ten times as important for large enterprises to figure out how to use new media today. If all you are doing to reach small businesses is advertising in a magazine or perhaps on the local public radio station, you are missing key opportunities to reach this group. Generating word of mouth for your company takes a new way of thinking … as well as technical skill and savvy. You have to be comfortable in the online world and you need to be fully aware of how word of mouth spreads in the offline world, too.”

I’ll be speaking on a panel at the Summit on June 6, 2006 about how to tap into the word of mouth marketing channel. I hope to see you there.

 Email This Post |  Print This Post